Hundreds of women and children freed from a Boko Haram stronghold this week are receiving counselling and medical care after a successful army rescue that provided a boost to the Nigerian president, Muhammadu Buhari.
Buhari, who won office in March on a pledge to tackle insecurity and terror, has given the military till the end of the year to eradicate the militant group.
Army spokesman Colonel Sani Usman said the 338 people rescued from camps on the outskirts of the Sambisa forest are now in the north-eastern city Mubi, where soldiers are working to verify their identities.
He said that it appeared none of the 270 schoolgirls abducted last year from the town of Chibok were among the rescued group.
“It is quite a number of people that comprised eight elderly people, 192 children, and the remaining women,” Usman said. “The most important thing now is they have been rescued and they are giving them the necessary assistance.”
Sambisa forest is a Boko Haram stronghold where the Chibok schoolgirls, whose kidnap sparked an international campaign under the banner #BringBackOurGirls, are thought to be being held.
But analysts say that despite the recent military gains against the terror group, the insurgency is far from over.
“We’ll see symbolic victories up until December,” said Yan St-Pierre of the Berlin-based Modern Security Consulting Group. “But this will by no means be the end of Boko Haram. This is a fight that will go on for a very long time.”
St-Pierre said Boko Haram has been known to kidnap women and children for use as cooks or domestic workers, while others are forced to marry fighters. Captured children are sometimes used as bombers.
Since his inauguration in May, Buhari has appointed a new top military brass and worked with neighbouring countries to put together a multinational force to tackle the group.
But Boko Haram has continued to show its strength wit a series of attacks in the north of Nigeria.
The governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima, said this week that extremists control two local government areas near the border with Niger, and are in partial control of another.
The group took responsibility for two bomb blasts earlier this month in suburbs of the capital Abuja that killed at least 18 people. It’s also believed to be behind bombings of mosques in the north-eastern cities of Yola and Maiduguri last week that left at least 55 people dead.
St-Pierre said the insurgency shouldn’t be thought of as a cohesive fighting force, and it was unlikely it would be defeated by the December deadline.
“Boko Haram in itself is spread out. It’s [comprised of] much smaller groups,” St-Pierre said. He said he doubted the military would meet its deadline, saying the fight would go on for a “very long time”.
